CS1300 blog for Xin Ma

One-sentence advice for future students

2007-11-30T15:35:00.000-08:00

Make sure you understand each assignment and follow the directions correctly.

Xin Ma

Websites and Stumpers

2007-11-28T22:09:00.000-08:00

Three of my favorite websites are :

1. Shannon's because it is easy to look at and navigate and it helps me know more about her.

2. Katie's because I think her collage on her homepage is very creative and I also like her quotation about family on her family page.

3. Ellitt's because he also made a organized and navigable website with a really good collage on the homepage.

Three of my favorite Stumpers are :

1. Patrick's because his picture has great lighting effects and it is really hard to tell where he took that picture.

2. Spencer's because the picture gives people little hints about where it is but I think I can tell where it is( pay attention to the mainroad outside the lawn).

3. Bart's because although his picture includes many objects like benches, buildings, and lawns, it is still not easy to tell where it is. Great job!

Xin Ma

Stumper!

2007-11-20T21:54:00.000-08:00

Please take a look at my Stumper website and guess where I took the picture for my homepage! I hope you will get it right!

Xin Ma

Website

2007-11-20T08:38:00.002-08:00

Take a look at my website. I hope you like it.

Xin Ma

The presentations I like best

2007-10-24T10:49:00.000-07:00

My three favorite PowerPoint presentations are made by Kealey Malott, Megan McCloskey, and Whitney Stanat.

I like Kealey Malott's because it has outlined the basic but most important things to remember when making a presentation. It is succinct but informative. However, Megan McCloskey's is impressive because it is more funny and ironic in contrast. And Whitney Stanat's is both creative and interesting and it covers what most other students' don't cover, such as "try to organize the slide so the ideas flow smoothly" and "don't clutter slides with lots of texts".

A few things that I think are essential to making a nice presentation involve the following:

1. Use proper fonts and backgrounds.
2. Use consistent transitions.
3. Combine texts, pictures, graphs, and sounds. Don't overuse either of them.
4. Make it easy and pleasant to read.

Xin Ma

I have made a really bad PowerPoint!

2007-10-23T09:02:00.001-07:00

This bad PowerPoint outlines how to make a bad PowerPoint.

Click here to see my PowerPoint presentation.

Xin Ma

Copyright

2007-09-30T17:15:00.000-07:00

Copyright is the legal right of an author of any creative works including writings, pictures, videos and so forth. There is Copyright Law which protects the right of the author and controls copying of the original work.

If I want to add an image from the internet to my post and publish it, I need to at least cite the source. This means, if I plan to use it in a short time and I have no time to notify the author, I can use it so long as I cited the source. This is called "Fair use", which applies to students, new reportors, scholars and teachers. However, if I plan to use it in advance and I do have time to ask permission, I should do so.

However, this is not always the case. There are some websites such as "stock exchange photos" which offers thousands of very fine fictures for free. If I use a picture from there, I don't need to cite the source.

Xin Ma

Personal views about Web 2.0

2007-09-22T16:28:00.000-07:00

People used to think that it is the few, powerful, and great people who shaped our history. This is true to some extent but things are changing now, especially after the invention of Web 2.0, after people could communicate freely, expressing their views to anything online and, commenting on other people’s comments. Web 2.0 is a revolution for human’s history. Everyone in the world can contribute on web 2.0 and share everyone else’s contribution. Web 2.0 has changed the world in many aspects including people’s way of learning things, communicating and discussing with other people, library media teachers using the Internet, people from different nations understanding each other and also the way all these things are changing.

First and foremost, in the presence of Wikipedia, people may refer to the Internet when they feel obscure on certain problems or concepts instead of the books. Wikipedia contains many people’s thoughts and comments and is thus detailed and tested. Furthermore, Wikipedia can save people a lot of searching time.

Besides, with blogs and MySpaces, people can communicate freely and make comment on other people’s arguments without knowing each other. Some contributions to the site generate enthusiastic responses. People are changing their ways of discussing and learning through this process.

I have recently read an article named “Making connections with Blogs and Wikis” by Doug Achterman about how Web 2.0 has changed the way school library media teacher use the Internet. In the article, it says that “In a school setting, blogs are ideal for sustained conversations involving an entire learning community.” It is a good idea that students using blogs to complete their assignments because everyone can access it synchronously or asynchronously. Groups can collaborate on a project and students can view what their peers have done.

Without doubt, Web 2.0 has also enabled exchanging opinions internationally not politician to politician, great man to great man, but citizen to citizen and person to person. This is a profound and revolutionary transform.

As the article “Time Person of the Year: You” says, “…like any experiment worth trying, it could fail”, Web 2.0 may contain some disadvantages like some bad or worthless comments can also contribute to the outcome. However, my views about Web 2.0 are still positive. This is a promising revolution and it has already improved and eased people’s life through some vital changes in the way people communicate.

Xin Ma

This blog entry is for my CS 1300 class.

2007-09-04T18:08:00.000-07:00

I have used the MS Office 2003 for quite a long time. I am familiar with the MS Word 2003 and I know a little bit about the Excel 2003 and PowerPoint 2003. As for the Access 2003, Outlook 2003 and Publisher 2003, I know nothing about them.

I would like to be able to use all the MS Office 2007 tools very well. The most attractive part of the MS Office 2007 is Word 2007. According to the information I have gathered, there are some new functions in MS Word 2007. For instance, the SmartArt, it can help you to create a very beautiful file in Word 2007. It is more convenient to publish our posts by Word 2007. And people say : you will get more advantages if you use Word 2007 to make diagram.

I know I still have a lot to learn and this is going to be hard, but it is also very useful, I think.

Xin Ma

self-introduction for CS 1300

2007-08-23T11:04:00.000-07:00

Hello,

This is Xin Ma from China. Though I am an undecided student, I am interested in Business Administration and especially interested in international business. One of my distinctive characteristics is that I can be really curious sometimes.

I love sports like swimming, dancing, ping-pong and yoga. By the way, I am taking the western country dancing course offered by Trinity this semester. Haha, I am learning to dance! My hobbies besides sports are keeping pets and taking photos.

Well, I am taking this CS 1300 class because I didn't pass the computer assessment test held during new student orientation. And, it is also because that I realise that my lacking of essential computer skills will continue to bother me in my future academic and career life. I understand that these skills are really indispensable and I have a responsibility to master them well.

Actually, the only things that I know about computer are typing, checking emails, using facebook, MSN and surfing through the Internet. So, I am pretty naive about this subject and I know I have a long way to go.

I hope this brief introduction helps you know me a little more.

Xin Ma